Keep No Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

know why Chief Matthews bothered to ask the question; for the bigger cases, Jack's answer is always yes, even if he has already assigned one of his assistants to prosecute it. It's one of the reasons he's so good at what he does. It's also one of the reasons his team respects him—he doesn't mind getting down in the trenches and he always makes himself available to do so. His efforts sometimes take a toll on their family life, but she does her best to understand. He gets results, too; his office has one of the highest conviction rates in the state, which is all the more impressive because of the large size of the population it serves.

    This latest case mesmerized the city when the crime first occurred two months before. Jack expects it to become a full-blown circus once the arrest is made. On the surface, the case sounded like so many other domestic murder cases, but Jack's instincts told him this one was different. Perhaps it was the fact that the husband was the victim, the wife the presumed perpetrator. Perhaps it was the gruesome way the murderer disposed of the body. It had been wrapped in plastic sheeting and duct tape and buried under ten inches of cement in the couple's basement. Or maybe, even, it was simply the pictures of the couple in their younger, happier days that repeatedly appeared on the front page of the paper when the story first broke. Regardless, Jack's instincts are usually right.
    She's already called the DA's office twice, thinking he might have stopped there after the interrogation; she refuses to allow herself a third attempt. She hasn't tried his cell because if he's still at the jail, she doesn't want to disturb him.
    Two graded papers later her phone rings and she sees it's him calling from his cell phone.
    "Wow. That must have been some interrogation." She smiles and swivels her chair around to look out her window as she talks. Heavy clouds march across the sky, pushed eastward by the cold front.
    The deserted campus is winter brown, but the air smelled of snow when she arrived several hours ago; it's only a matter of time and her view will be transformed into a white wonderland.
    He doesn't respond. She hears the tap of his footsteps on the sidewalk. She guesses he's walking from the jail to his car. Or maybe to his office.
    "Oh, you mean Bedford," he says finally, referring to the couple's surname.
    "That's the case you went over to the jail on a Sunday for, isn't it?"
    "Yeah, yeah. It was fine. I mean, we got a confession from the wife, so, you know, that makes it easier."
    "So what was her story? Why'd she do it?"
    Again, he falls silent. The branches of the leafless oak tree next to the building bend from the wind and scratch against the glass in front of her.
    "You there?" she asks.

    "Look," he says, "I don't know that I should be discussing the details of the case."
    In all the years he's worked at the prosecutor's office, she can't remember him ever saying this to her. Even if there were details he thought he couldn't share
    —and she knows that's often the case—
    he'd never couch it as a refusal to answer her questions. He'd simply craft an acceptable answer that neither denied her nor gave away confidential information.
    "I'm not asking you to tell me anything that won't be on the news."
    "She said he cheated on her."
    Claire closes her eyes. Why did she persist? Why didn't she trust his instincts?
    It might have been naïve of him to think he could protect her, protect them, from the specifics about the case—after all, it will be on the news—but still, he tried.
    When she doesn't respond—she simply has no idea what she could say now—he speaks up.
    "I'm sorry it took me so long. I wouldn't have known you'd called if I hadn't checked my office messages. I wish you'd tried my cell."
    Still shaken, she says, "That's okay. It wasn't important enough to disturb you."
    "Why are you at the law school today?"
    "I dunno. Since you wouldn't be home anyway, I figured I'd catch up